


The Pit and the Pendulum

by Anonymous



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Community: dragonage_kink, F/M, M/M, Red Templars, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 06:08:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3885268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tl;dr version of this prompt was "Dorian is taken prisoner by the red templars who rape and torture him repeatedly for months before he's rescued by the Inquisition, but by that time he's become a very broken man." </p><p>And I am trash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Impia tortorum longas hic turba furores

Dorian had been stretched out on the table for Maker only knew how long when he heard the distant sound of fighting. The fact that it was distant didn't mean much: the hood he was wearing was enchanted to distort sound, so he couldn't use his sense of hearing to anticipate where the next blow was coming from. Lyrium rations had probably been cut again. Hopefully they would kill enough of each other that he didn't have to deal with-  
  
_\- too much blood, far too much, potion after potion forced down his throat to compensate, it might not be enough, please, just let it end, let it stop, Maker, anyone, please-_  
  
-how short his captors' tempers got when they couldn't get their fix. He tried to ignore it, reminding himself every time the clash of blades on armor sounded too loudly that he had no way of knowing whether or not they were even fighting in the same room as him. He flinched anyway.   
  
It was some time before the sounds of fighting ended, but it was very shortly thereafter when the hood was yanked off. He gasped, his eyes streaming under the sudden light. He squinted, trying to get some idea of what was coming, the form looming over him resolving as he panted in as much clear air as he could while the opportunity was afforded him. He made out blond pleated hair and the curves of a woman's chest, and then he **panicked**.   
  
Dorian didn't really have the ability to struggle against the Templars anymore, not when it came to most things, but-  
  
_"Should just make him Tranquil. It already feels like fucking a corpse- you barely notice him crying."  
  
"You'd know."  
  
"You’d like it."  
  
"Nah- but I know what'll liven him up. Oi, Laurine!"_  
  
-he couldn't not fight this. They weren't going to succeed where his father had failed. He refused to submit to it. Not without a fight.  
  
Not that he could put up much of a fight, restrained as he was. But he could still yell, and yell he did.   
  
"No! Get off me! Don't you dare-"  
  
The woman backed off, one hand held up, spread open and palm out, the other holding her staff. Dorian stared, turning his head as far as he could, and her appearance resolved itself further, into the mahogany skin and compact stature of the Inquisitor.  
  
"...Evie?" he croaked.   
  
"Dorian," she replied. "Dorian, I need to get you off of this... thing. Can I do that?"  
  
He stared at her, unwilling to believe it.   
  
"Would like me get someone else?" she asked. When he failed to respond to that she tried. "Would you like me to get Iron Bull?"  
  
He gave in. "Yes."  
  
He closed his eyes, partially in shame, partially so he didn't have to see the transformation and could cling to the illusion a little while longer. They'd thrown him in the Harrowing Chamber again, of course: there was-  
  
_\- didn't even have time to catch his breath before the first purge hit. He curled into a ball, waiting for the metal boots to draw nearer and begin the process all over again: the kicks, the manacles, the bucket, the knife, the-_  
  
-no way this was real. Any minute now the Bull would enter and the pain would fade as he gentled Dorian out of the dungeon, as though it was just another one of their games that had gotten a little out of hand. Then the demon would reveal itself, and he'd have to fight it, and when he woke back up the Templars would be there, waiting.   
  
Any minute now. Any. Minute.

When ‘any minute’ refused to materialize in a timely fashion, he cracked his eyes open again, and searched around for any sign that he hadn't hallucinated the rescue attempt. The fact that he was able to search was a positive sign, and eventually he craned his neck at the correct angle to see the Inquisitor's robes in his peripheral vision. She seemed to be leaning into the corridor, but when she pulled back a bit he could hear what was being said.   
  
"Please, Bull."  
  
"What if I lose it? I don't want to hurt him what if this is what pushes me over the edge?"  
  
"Bull, anyone who was likely to turn Tal-Va-Fucking-Shoth and all the savagery that implies is dead. We killed them. And now Dorian needs you."  
  
"Fucking hell, boss, what did I do to piss you off?" But Evie's robes disappeared, and a moment later the Bull came into view.  
  
He looked terrible. There was a bleeding gash on his chest that hadn't been tended to, and worse than that he seemed haggard and worn. He moved slowly, hesitantly, and with the jerky motions he knew meant that he'd seen something that reminded him a little too strongly of Seheron.   
  
It wasn't how he ever wanted to see the Bull, though in hindsight it made perfect sense. That, more than anything, convinced him.   
  
"Bull?" he checked.   
  
"Dorian," the Bull replied, and then he seemed to crack slightly, his hands shaking as he reached for the bindings. " _Kadan._ "  
  
"Templars?"  
  
"Dead. They're all dead. Every single one of the fuckers." He found the clasp for the collar around Dorian's neck, and his magic came flowing back all at once, ready and waiting and his to use to protect himself with once more.  
  
Dorian sobbed. The Bull froze, searching his face for something.   
  
"Thank you," Dorian tried to explain. "Thank you."


	2. Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.

The Templars at the Ostwick Circle hadn’t been particularly bad. Not until the end. Not until they no longer had 'transferred to Kirkwall' to hold over their heads.  
  
Then things had gotten bad in very short order.   
  
The four years between Kirkwall and the Conclave had been more than enough time to develop a routine for this: for taking care of a friend who'd been brutalized and terrorized almost beyond recognition. When Iron Bull returned, he was carrying Dorian wrapped in a cloak: Dorian was awake, but not especially lucid, curled up against Iron Bull's chest with his eyes closed.   
  
_Solitary confinement- more like 'solitary'- restraints left on for longer than they should have been, no light, magic repeatedly purged and suppressed._ The deductions were automatic, independent of the memories of the state she'd found Dorian in not too long ago.  
  
She left Iron Bull standing watch over him as the healers did what they could to stabilize him, and went to gather some supplies. She didn't get very far before Cole stopped her, appearing out of nowhere and placing a hand on her wrist.   
  
"They tricked him," the spirit explained. "Gentle motions, the clean feeling of blood and worse breaking away, and then the cloth was over his face, choking, causing him to cringe at cleanliness."  
  
"Have you told the healers this?" she asked.   
  
Cole's eyes widened, and then he vanished.   
  
It was some time before the healers allowed her in to see Dorian with Iron Bull, and by that time they had indeed cleaned him up. Dorian's face was shinning with perspiration, and the healers told them that he would likely be falling asleep soon.   
  
Dorian kept jerking awake at every noise for the next hour, until finally she and Iron Bull began to keep up a steady stream of conversation as a form of ambient noise. They mostly talked about what Dorian had missed: their victory in the Arbor Wilds, Samson's capture, Corypheus' defeat.   
  
"I'm sorry it took so long to find you," they both said, in various ways, at various points. "We had a lot on our plate."  
  
It wasn't clear how much he actually heard.

Dorian had a lot of friends in the Inquisition, more than he probably would have named as such. He was a witty, sarcastic, nearly flippant persona, and so long as neither that nor the "Tevinter mage" aspects of him served to put you off of him, it wouldn't be long until you realized that underneath that there was a very passionate man who cared deeply about doing the right thing.   
  
The problem was, it was hard to find much of that Dorian in the man they brought back to Skyhold. That was part of the reason why he was allowed so few visitors while his physical recovery was intensive enough to warrant his own room. The other part was that his reactions to people were hindering his recovery. For the first few days, the healers would enter his room, only to find that he'd woken up despite their potions and his exhaustion, and was kneeling by the bed. Female healers made him panic, while he'd be as compliant as could be when they were male, which ran contrary to their expectations. It took them a week to figure that one out, at which point Evie became the only woman allowed in Dorian's room, to Sera's mingled relief and displeasure.  
  
Cullen had not been officially banned from Dorian's rooms, but the way the mage had reacted to him was more than enough to keep him away.   
  
"Is it still obvious that I was a Templar?" he asked, whispered the words into the back of her neck like a confession. "Even though I've stopped taking the lyrium?"  
  
"Yes," Evie told him: that was a confession. "It's not the same as it is with, say, Belinda, but there's still something about the way you are that says 'Templar'."  
  
There was the body language and fighting style, of course, the things Iron Bull would be better able to enumerate than herself. But it was more than that- a sense of **nothing** where the Fade should be. She would guess _that_ was what Dorian was reacting to. It wasn’t as though he could be reading much body language with his eyes trained on the floor.  
  
Iron Bull spent the most time with Dorian out of all of them. It seemed that Dorian slept best when he was curled up on top of the qunari; sometimes Evie would sneak into his ward in order to peek in, just to make sure that it was so. Sometimes Iron Bull would notice her, opening his good eye a crack and sending her a pleasant, sleepy smile that told her on no uncertain terms to get lost. Other times...  
  
"It means 'my heart'."  
  
"What?" Dorian asked, his voice barely a whisper.   
  
"Kadan. It's often translated as 'my heart', though literally its 'where the heart lies'. You were tearing your hair out, trying to find some sort of Qunlat-Trade dictionary to get that information, remembered?"  
  
"Oh."  
  
It was more obvious from Iron Bull's reaction to the noises, rather than the noises Dorian was making, that the mage had started crying.   
  
"Hey now, what's causing this?"  
  
"I'm not-" Dorian didn't seem able to finish that sentence. "I _can't_."  
  
"Yes, you are," Bull said soothingly. "Don't worry about it- it'll still be there for later."  
  
When Evie finally made it to her bed, she gathered Cullen up in her arms, wrapping her hands around his wrists as though that would keep him safe- from lyrium withdrawals or anything else.


	3. Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro

Cullen's nightmares were about Kirkwall more often than not these days: Kerras and Alrik, Meredith's madness and the red lyrium that corrupted her even further, the mages who limped around with hollow eyes and bruises in odd places who would never meet his gaze even when he asked them questions- something he hadn't done nearly often enough.   
  
Tonight was going to be a particularly bad night, he could already tell. He hadn't asked Dorian for a report on what the Red Templars were doing- it was obvious what they had done, and equally obvious that it was done with no reason at all, except perhaps their own amusement.   
  
Dorian apparently disagreed, and Cullen was now looking over some kind of report written in his distinctive hand: the sharp 'u' that looked like a 'v', the curling lines that slithered across 't' and 'f', the dashes used instead of dots over 'i' and 'j'...  
  
He studied the handwriting until he could no longer put off studying the words.   
  
_Believe it or not, it seemed to be a part of the process for creating Shadows, and regulating the progression of red lyrium corruption for the more human troops. Lyrium can be expelled through bodily fluids, and given what we know of how red lyrium corrupts from the inside out, it might very well be that ejaculating is tied into the process of managing how the corruption spreads.  
  
I don't have a basis for comparison, but I was not previously aware that women ejaculated, and the female Templars did so pretty consistently. That seems potentially significant.   
  
I did overhear some conversations which lead me to believe that they had to keep a mage for this purpose- something to do with our unique ability to process lyrium.   
  
There were repeated threats to make me Tranquil, or comments to that effect not directed at myself. I don't know how that ties into things.   
  
There was also an ad hoc Harrowing Chamber, which I was forced into on five separate occasions. I don't know what the point of that was either._  
  
There were more- details of what had been done when, and what effect that seemed to have on the corruption's progress through the Templar ranks. It was written in the same steady hand as the summary that prefaced the report, but the words blurred in his mind all the same.   
  
He remembered how Alain was in the end, too tired to do more than parrot back the lies Karras had told him to say about the ring of bruises around his neck and the puffy black eye. He thought about Meredith: the orders to crack down hard on the blood mages that had escaped from Starkhaven and how easy it had been to rationalize what was happening as simply that, especially once his ration of lyrium had been threatened.   
  
He thought about Carroll: "Please, for my sake, do what you have to do - but just make it quick." That's what he said, even knowing that Dorian was likely being held there, because Carroll, loopy Carroll, too soft-hearted and soft-headed for Greagoir to trust in a Circle facing the Rite of Annulment surely must have done nothing worse than look the other way.   
  
_Do as I say, or I'll have you made Tranquil for your disobedience._  
_How can you be expected to survive your Harrowing if a little roll in the hay is enough to break you?_  
_It's just a test. Just to make sure you won't become a blood mage. You’re not a blood mage, are you?_  
  
Like he didn't know that looking the other way still made you an accomplice.

Dorian had been let out of his confinement for a long time before they saw each other around Skyhold again. He heard about him from Evie, and from the rumors that abound about what, exactly, he was recovering from. He, predictably, had started to spend more and more time in the library. Iron Bull sat with him- they were joined at the hip now, it seemed.   
  
He avoided running into them, taking the battlements over to the rookery when he needed to see Leliana.  
  
Gradually, Dorian began branching out: dinner in the tavern with the Chargers, a debate with Dagna about the nature of the Fade, a walk out in the gardens with Evie, a rooftop chat/cookie-throwing session with Sera.   
  
And, eventually, a chess game with Cullen.   
  
Dorian was waiting for him in his office. The Bull was nowhere in sight.   
  
"I'd say we should pick up where we left off, but I honestly can't recall where we were," he said, idly twirling a mage around.   
  
"Me neither," Cullen admitted. "I'm not even sure which of us was playing white."  
  
"Start again?" Dorian asked.   
  
It all seemed so normal that it took him by surprise when Dorian showed no inclination to banter over the chess board. He didn't speak at all for several minutes, and then he asked "Did you get the report I wrote for you?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And?"  
  
And he thought that maybe there was **something** to his whole red lyrium corruption regulation theory, but more likely it was simply a matter of the Templars regressing to old habits. Threats of Tranquility made no sense unless that was already an ingrained response to a mage doing something you didn't like. The Harrowing made no sense at all, unless it was a way of checking that a mage could function. There was a senseless cruelty to their actions that made more sense when you felt like you had to make an example of someone to their fellows. When you had to break someone to your will.   
  
That was calculated. He'd seen it done in Kirkwall, years of petty cruelties being justified and then standardized into an unofficial policy, designed to keep the mages cowed.   
  
But Dorian wouldn't have written that report if he had thought that it had all be pointless. He wouldn't have written it if he didn't have hope. Cullen would not take that from him.   
  
"I've gone over some of the details with Leliana. It's given our spies and scouts something to look for when moving in Red Templar territory."  
  
The smile Dorian gave him in reply was small, but unlike the smiles he'd given Cullen since they sat down to play, it reached his eyes.


	4. Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.

Dorian told him everything.   
  
He talked about how it felt to be held down and fucked by someone whose fingers were fusing together, about the woman who would make him beg to go down on her before allowing him food, about days where he couldn't sleep for the endless parade of Templars who wanted a piece of him and days where his only company was the drip of gruel down his throat from the feeding tube that had been shoved down his nose.   
  
Partially he did it to try and scare the Bull away, and that was almost easier to take. That was an old fear, one instilled by Tevinter, and they'd dealt with it before. But a lot of it was just him trying to keep the memories from popping up time and again, like a surgeon lancing a festering wound, like he'd done when he turned himself over to the re-educators after Seheron: _get it out of my head, I don't want to see it anymore, I want it to be over and stay in the past where it belongs_.   
  
He and Dorian had liked playing rough with each other, and he didn't doubt that most of Skyhold knew it, and knew that the Bull was the one who mostly assumed the role of the aggressor. It was a dynamic which worked for them because it allowed them to play out some of their worst fears on their own pleasurable terms. The Bull got to play the savage beast with no thought save his own desires, and Dorian got to be the helpless victim: meanwhile, the Bull was firmly in control, and Dorian had the power to stop things with a single word.   
  
That wasn't how they were anymore. Dorian had become the helpless victim, and the Bull had come very close to madness when he'd lost him. They were going to have to find a new dynamic.   
  
The Bull was pretty okay with that. The urge to kill everything in his path had started to quiet after they'd brought Dorian back to Skyhold, and he was beginning to hope it would stay quiet so long as Dorian was never hurt again. It made sense in a way- of course losing his heart had nearly driven him mad. Now that it was back in place, he was safe again. He could do gentle, he could do considerate, he could do steady because he was back in control. And whatever Dorian needed, he would get, the Bull would see to that.  
  
Dorian was probably never going back into the field- he himself was too worried about what he might do if anyone grabbed him again, even if it was only in the sense of grappling during a fight. Instead, he did his research in the library, and was considering taking up a position teaching some of the little magelings that had latched on to the Inquisition, from the safety of Skyhold.   
  
He was also probably never going back to Tevinter, and he felt kind of guilty at how relieved that made him. He'd always suspected that returning to Tevinter was something Dorian thought he should want to do, rather than something he actually wanted to do, and the Bull felt better, not having to worry that he was going to step back into a pit of vipers out of a sense of obligation to a place that had done nothing for him.   
  
When it came to the two of them in private, they took it slow and gentle: no games, no roughness, just soft touched and murmurs of encouragement. Dorian sank into it so readily- so greedily- that sometimes he wondered if maybe this wasn't something they shouldn't have tried before. Other times, he'd look at Dorian while he was all doe-eyes and trembling need and remember the mouthy brat who'd insisted that he had no need of a watchword, he wasn't going to break.   
  
Either way, he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd failed to do something for Dorian that Dorian needed. The feeling wasn't going to go away, probably, not as long as Dorian had nightmares that rattled him so badly that the Bull would wake up to find him kneeling by the bed, eyes downcast and teeth chattering with cold.   
  
And he was probably going to have those nightmares for years, if not the rest of his life. The Bull still dreamed of Seheron, after all.   
  
It wasn't a deal breaker. Dorian had learned to soothe his nightmares and humor the reflexes that island had beat into him. The Bull wasn't going to give him any less than he'd received.

**Author's Note:**

> The full prompt reads:  
> "Hey so this kink had quite a few seconds back in late Dec but never got filled and I need it...
> 
> Dorian has never been subjected to the tender mercies of the Northern templars, so when he gets captured by the red templars while working for the inquisition he has no idea what to expect besides the vague idea that the situation is BAD. He certainly does not expect to be thrown in a dungeon, his magic suppressed and for the templars to take turns raping, torturing and humiliating him. When the Inquisitor and co rescue him months later they find a broken man - gone is the cocky, sarcastic, sassy Tevinter mage - the mage they find in the red templar dungeon is broken and quiet and timid and humble.
> 
> Bonus points for already established Iron Bull/Dorian or M!Inquisitor/Dorian. Or, alternately, either relationship blossoms during Dorian's recovery.
> 
> Even more bonus points if Dorian remains permanently scarred by the experience, even if he manages to recuperate somewhat. He's slowly getting back to being the person he was in public, but it's largely a front - in private he remains as timid and submissive as before.
> 
> Epic bonus points if his lover gets off on it big time but feels deeply ashamed because they know Dorian's acting like this for all the wrong reasons, so they make an immense effort to always be kind and gentle with him."
> 
> The original fill can be read here: http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/13429.html?thread=51534709#t51534709


End file.
